


Aparecium

by runningondreams



Series: Leviosa-verse [1]
Category: Marvel (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Angst, Fluff, Getting Together, Happy Ending, Kissing, M/M, Miscommunication, vague historical/magical AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 03:45:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4690874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runningondreams/pseuds/runningondreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony cares too much. He's clutching at his coat like it can shield him from some unknown horror. It's mortifying, and silly, and he fervently wishes for a time-turner so he could just go back an hour, maybe two, and avoid the incredibly painful awkwardness that this conversation is likely to turn into.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aparecium

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laireshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/gifts).



> Written for the [Cap-IronMan Tiny Reverse Bang](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/CapIronMan_TinyReverseBang2015/works) round [Invincible](http://capim-tinybang.tumblr.com/post/127306211501/title-imperfections-artist-ssyn3-link-to-tumblr), and also a fill for the "friends with benefits" box on my stony bingo card. Prequel to [Leviosa](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3120989) (Harry Potter AU where the Avengers found a school of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the American Colonies).
> 
> This one's for laireshi, because after 8 months of her suggesting it every time I mused over prompts, I finally finished something new in this verse :).
> 
> _Aparecium_ is a revealing spell used to reverse concealment charms or make invisible things visible.

They make it all the way to Steve's bedroom before Tony's just overwhelmed by it—the warmth, the acceptance, the bloody _affection_ thrumming under his skin. He steps back from Steve's embrace, cold dread settling in his gut.

“I really wasn't expecting this to happen,” he admits. He's clutching at his coat like it can shield him from some unknown horror. It's mortifying, and silly, and he fervently wishes for a time-turner so he could just go back an hour, maybe two, and avoid the incredibly painful awkwardness that this conversation is likely to turn into. Better to have never kissed the man, better to have never agreed to dinner, than to deal with this.

The kissing was definitely a mistake. Everything would've been fine if he could've just—not done that.

Steve cocks an eyebrow at him, and it should be annoying, how unflappable he is even with his shirt-collar and tie wrinkled and his waistcoat and trousers half-undone (Tony always did work fast when he was properly motivated). It should be infuriating, and Tony should be reaching for his wand and calling jinxes to mind instead of simultaneously wishing to sink into the floor and strip the man of the rest of his clothing. 

“You're having doubts now?” Steve asks. “ _You_? The man who just last week proposed a midday quickie in a broom closet? Do I need to check you for polyjuice?”

“Polyjuice would've worn off by now,” Tony informs him, fingers clenching tighter in his lapels.

“Not if you took more at the pub. It'd be a very Slytherin thing to do, you know.”

Tony shakes his head. He's not joking about this. He wants to peel off Steve's clothes and palm his cock and whisper filthy things in his ear, wants to kiss the quirk of a smile on Steve's lips and muss up his hair some more, wants to— _stay_. And that's the problem, isn't it.

Steve frowns. “Tony?”

“This was a bad idea,” Tony says. It was doomed from the start, probably. “I shouldn't have—well.” Steve has very nice carpets in his rooms. Thick and probably warm, some sort of geometric pattern that's obscured by the furniture. He must've brought them from England; none of the local merchants sell anything like them.

“Do you not want to?” Steve asks. He's not moving at all. The hem of his coat doesn't even twitch.

“I want to,” Tony says, because there's little point in denying it when he had his hand halfway down Steve's trousers a few minutes ago, but … “I just … think it's a bad idea.”

“Because you've never had one of those before,” Steve teases, and Tony glares at him until his smirk shifts into something dangerously close to actual _concern_. 

Merlin's _balls_ , that was exactly what he'd been trying to avoid. 

“I should … There are things I should do,” Tony says, stepping backwards blindly. “For the school, things I should—” 

“Tony, what are you—” Steve is following him, looking more confused by the second and Tony doesn't want to have this conversation _ever_ if he can help it.

“I need to—” he steps back again and stumbles at the edge of the rug. He lunges forward, trying to regain his balance and reaching out his palms to stabilize with a few wandless blasts, and he ends up smashing his face straight into Steve's chest. They both go down in a heap of tangled limbs, and for a moment Tony just lies there, ruing the impulse that had ever made him think he could pull off some sort of no-strings relationship with a man he's known since they were first-years. He should've known it would go poorly. He'd had Reed and Victor's example right in front of him for _years_. It was never going to work.

“You have an extremely hard head,” Steve groans underneath him.

“Says you,” Tony says, almost entirely on automatic as he fantasizes about a universe where he actually made it to the door and there were no consequences for his poor decisions.

“Says my sternum, which is probably going to bruise horribly,” Steve says. “Also, you're heavy. Can you sit up?”

“Such delicate Aurors they're turning out these days,” Tony groans, but he does sit up, and Steve drags himself up onto his elbows and levels a _look_ at him.

“Are you going to actually talk to me now?” Steve asks.

“Do I have to?” Tony asks, because it's worth a shot, even though he knows that time turners and experimental potions were never really going to be a possibility. 

“Considering that you looked like I'd turned into a boggart, yes.”

“Fine,” Tony grumbles. He crosses his legs and straightens his sleeves. His hair is hanging out of its tie, but there's probably no point trying to fix it just now. He hooks the most annoying strands behind his ears and looks back to Steve. 

He's sat up a bit more fully and ditched his coat and now he's just watching, expectant. 

“I can't do this,” Tony says, and it feels rough even before it leaves his mouth, all sharp angles and scraping edges in his throat. Christ, they're not even going to be eating lunch together after this are they? That was one of the high points of his day. Right up there with catching Steve between class periods and making him blush all the way to the roots of his hair.

Steve's not blushing now. In fact, he looks like maybe he's _losing_ color. Wonderful.

“Can't do what?”

“ _This_.” Tony waves a hand between them, his mouth twisting beyond his control. “The sex, I thought I could but I was—it was stupid of me.”

Steve leans his elbows on his knees and studies the carpet for a moment. 

“What are you saying?” he asks, finally, and Tony hasn't seen that glare in _years_. “Are you—have you just been _humoring me_ for some reason? Or is this some sort of incredibly elaborate _prank_ or—”

“No, no,” Tony waves his hands, “it's not that I—I just.” He sighs and drops his hands. “I care too much,” he admits. 

Steve stares at him, lips parted. 

“You care to much,” he repeats, and Tony nods. “What in the nine hells is that supposed to mean.”

“It means I _care,_ ” Tony scowls. “It means—what do you think it means? It means I want to kiss you, I want to take you flying just to see you smile, I worry about you taking on too much with the fidelus, I worry about you getting _cold_ , I want to fall asleep next to you and kiss you awake in the morning, I want this to be more than—than fumbling in broom closets!” 

Steve stares at him some more, and Tony is sorely tempted to just stand up and try to walk out again. He feels too-hot and trapped inside his own skin. His ears itch. His jaw is starting to hurt.

“Not that it's not nice to hear you actually say all that,” Steve says, “but what's the problem?”

“You—what?” This should be obvious. It's been glaringly, painfully obvious to Tony for the entire conversation so far. “The problem is that you're perfectly happy with the broom closets!” 

“Tony.” Steve rubs his hands over his face. For a moment Tony thinks that's all he's going to say. He just sits there. Tony watches his shoulders rise and fall until his hands drop. His face is blotchy with trapped heat, his eyebrows pushed into disarray. 

“You think I asked you to dinner tonight because I like getting my cock sucked in broom closets?” Steve asks. “You think I bring food down to your room and spend days digging up obscure spellbooks in cramped attics just because I want to fuck you? Do you really think I would have crossed a damned ocean because you asked me to if I didn't actually like you?” 

“That's not the same thing,” Tony protests, and Steve actually laughs, short, with a bitter note to it.

“Merlin, you really didn't know, did you?” He looks tired, his shoulders slumped and the tilt of his mouth resigned. “Jan's been ribbing me about it since I _got here_. You give me gifts, you ask my opinion before everyone else's, you drop everything the instant I ask for your help with something. I've been trying to do everything I can think of to keep up; I thought we were _courting_ and all this time you thought—” he shakes his head. 

“C _ourting_?” Tony's voice does something very undignified with the word. He clears his throat. “I wasn't … I didn't think—” He snaps his jaw shut. Every word is just making Steve retreat in on himself, his shoulders curling and his hands clenching tight on his knees. 

_Have_ they been courting? He does give Steve things, useful things, necessary things, and of course he values Steve's opinion. Steve has always been his best sounding board, even when the only things he was sounding were juvenile hexes and pranks. And Steve is … well he's considerate. It hasn't always been applied in Tony's direction, but actually working together every day changes things. And being the only two Hogwarts graduates in a 50 mile radius means there are things they just—understand about each other. Shared context. Like the merits of midnight snacks and spells for enchanted windows. 

Courting probably doesn't fit into that shared context. This is probably not a good time to bring up Tony's experiences with romance and Slytherin house politics, or the practicality of his fellow apprentices after graduation. Steve's a Gryffindor. They probably believe in true love on principle. Steve's probably never heard of friends with benefits. Trying to explain would only make things worse. 

“You came here for _me_?” he asks, because that's still the part that doesn't make any sense at all.

“Not _just_ for you.” Steve sighs. “Why did you think I came?”

“I thought you liked the idea! I thought you agreed it was a good cause and wanted to be involved!”

Morgana and Nimue, if Steve's here for _him_ the whole place is going to fall apart. The stability of their _secret keeper_ cannot be dependent on Tony's ability to navigate a relationship, _any_ kind of relationship. This is a disaster in the making. He needs to start working in some more fail-safes _yesterday_.

“I did, I do!” Steve assures him. “I just would've done things differently if it hadn't been … someone I knew who was doing the asking.” 

“What things?” Tony eyes him suspiciously. Steve has never shown any sign he had regrets about coming to the Colonies. Nothing beyond missing the conveniences of the largest all-Wizarding community in Europe, anyway.

Steve rubs the back of his neck. “It's not important.”

“Are you lying to me, Rogers?”

Steve gives him a bemused look. “Tony, you trusted me with the lives of every witch and wizard in this school. If I thought it mattered, I would tell you. And that's not what we're talking about right now, we're talking about—” he makes a face, “whatever it is that's going on here.”

Right. Tony files away the topic of Steve's potential regrets to consider later. They're talking about c _ourting_. But if Steve thinks they _have_ been then … maybe there isn't a problem after all. Maybe they can try this the Gryffindor way. (Some part of him cringes a bit at the thought and he sternly reminds himself that Hogwarts is years behind him and _this is what he wants_. Well. Maybe not the whole true-love-forever bit but mutual affection and flirting and lunch and more kissing and _yes_ , sex also because Steve wants—Steve wants … oh.) 

“What um. What do _you_ want?” Tony asks. He bites the inside of his lip. If Steve's didn't actually mean what it sounded like he meant ...

“I want to see what happens if we both know what's going on,” Steve says. He smiles, eyes lowered, almost shy. “I think getting kissed awake sounds really nice, for starters.”

“O—” Tony coughs and clears his throat. “Okay,” he tries again. “I … would like that.”

“Okay,” Steve says. And he leans up onto his knees and cups his hand around the back of Tony's head and pulls him closer. 

It's a softer kiss than the one Tony'd initiated after dinner. Gentle, coaxing, and Tony feels a bit like he's taking a portkey. A tug behind his naval and the world blurring away until the only things he's really paying attention to are Steve's lips on his and Steve's hands in his hair and the feel of Steve under his fingers, the heat and life of him and the tingle of magic in the fabric of his clothes. 

When he pulls back Steve's smiling, soft and fond. _Caring_ , and Tony's breath catches in his chest because he's seen that smile before, over dusty books in the library they're slowly building, and out of the corner of his eye when he's caught up in explanations about the wards, or the building foundations, or the hundreds of layers of spells it takes to enchant something like the Sorting Hat. Steve had been wearing that smile the day he'd first shown up to find Tony hip-deep in mud and tree roots, trying to clear the garden's irrigation ditches.

How had he not recognized it before? How had he ever thought Steve Rogers would be interested in only flirting and dueling and sex? 

How long has Steve thought they were courting? How much did he miss? How much ground does he have to make up here?

“Do you have a favorite breakfast?” he asks, trying to think of what he could possibly do to make it clear just how on board he is with this. He wants to be _closer_ , wants to find out what Steve looks like, naked and panting beneath him, wants to see that fond look in his eyes again when there's nothing between them but skin and sweat and hot panted breaths, and at every other time and in every other place he can manage. “Can I treat you to breakfast tomorrow? Do you have a favorite flower, or—There's a conference in London in a few months, if you want to go, um—” 

Steve's laughing at him now, a real laugh that shakes his shoulders and soothes the frantic spin of thoughts circling in Tony's head. He probably hasn't screwed things up too badly. Not if Steve actually looks like he might be _happy_.

“Come to bed with me,” Steve says, eyes bright, and yes, absolutely. Tony can definitely do that. 

“It would be my pleasure,” he agrees, and Steve reels him back in for another kiss.


End file.
